The home of Bill and Laurel Levin designed by Kler Architects in Muir Beach, CA Saturday, November 2, 2013.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

The home of Bill and Laurel Levin designed by Kler Architects in...

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The home, once a 1970s wood-and-shingle dwelling, doubled in size while adding two bedrooms and a family room. Architect Jerry Kler used the home's angles to maximize ocean views.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The home, once a 1970s wood-and-shingle dwelling, doubled in size...

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The triangle room and terrace overlook the infinity pool, the first phase of the Levin-Simes house remodel, six years ago. Construction on the cabana followed.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The triangle room and terrace overlook the infinity pool, the first...

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In front of the custom bookcase and a ribbon skylight crosses the roof from eave to eave.

In front of the custom bookcase and a ribbon skylight crosses the...

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Levin and Simes with their son, Joe Levin. The family voted to stay in the house during the work.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

Levin and Simes with their son, Joe Levin. The family voted to stay...

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The home of Bill and Laurel Levin designed by Kler Architects in Muir Beach, CA Saturday, November 2, 2013.

Photo: Michael Short, The Chronicle

The home of Bill and Laurel Levin designed by Kler Architects in...

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The master bathroom with curved glass tile on the right, defining the custom bath and shower area. Includes a white Caesarstone counter with wenge wood cabinet.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The master bathroom with curved glass tile on the right, defining...

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The bathroom connecting two bedrooms includes stainless-steel open cabinet, Caesarstone counter and Anigre cabinet.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The bathroom connecting two bedrooms includes stainless-steel open...

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The lower-level family room with custom inlaid wall.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The lower-level family room with custom inlaid wall.

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Views from the hallway capture the multiple planes of the roof to the upper loft an small viewing area.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

Views from the hallway capture the multiple planes of the roof to...

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The family area with upper loft seating.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The family area with upper loft seating.

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The lower-level family room and guest bedroom with mirrored and blackened steel fireplace.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The lower-level family room and guest bedroom with mirrored and...

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In the entry, glass stair treads, skylight and glass wall.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

In the entry, glass stair treads, skylight and glass wall.

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The view of the landscaped hillside through one of the home's ribbon windows.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The view of the landscaped hillside through one of the home's...

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The kitchen includes a built-in table anchored to the floor. Beyond is the new stair tower and wall of glass on the right.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The kitchen includes a built-in table anchored to the floor. Beyond...

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The living area and loft with stainless railings and glass.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The living area and loft with stainless railings and glass.

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A corner window in the stair tower overlooks the hillside.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

A corner window in the stair tower overlooks the hillside.

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The loft area off the master bedroom was created from an existing closet.

Photo: Cesar Rubio

The loft area off the master bedroom was created from an existing...

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The gallery hallway connects the living area to the bedrooms. Plaster walls from the bedrooms are closets inside and art spaces in the hall. Light enters from the two-level ceiling. The ribbon window on the right overlooks the terraced garden.

A busy trial lawyer who traveled for work, mother to a very athletic boy and stepmother to three teenage girls, Laurel Simes rarely had time to relax. That's why she loved the fuss-free ease of her funky '70s-era wood-and-shingle home overlooking the Pacific and Muir Beach in Marin County.

Simes and her husband, Bill Levin, also a lawyer, agreed an update of the two-bedroom home was overdue, but hesitated at the thought of going totally modern. "We had a cozy, homey, hippie house, and I had some trepidation," Simes said. "Would it be too stark and spare and not as comfortable?"

So when the couple hired Sausalito architect Jerry Kler to design a solar-powered infinity pool and hot tub, Simes wasn't thinking beyond acquiring the Bisazza tiles that would line them. "I was trying to negotiate with the guy in L.A. for a good price. The guy said: 'You're asking for a deeper discount than we gave to Elton John!' " (She got the same price.)

Design on the fly

The couple worked so well with Kler and builder Matt Lombardi of Caletti Jungsten Contractors ("now like members of the family," she says) that they decided to add some bedrooms. What followed was less a case of scope creep and more an adventure in designing on the fly.

Six years later, it's hard to believe that old 2,200-square-foot home on a woody 3 acres ever existed. In its place is an angular, vertiginous structure twice the size, with windows everywhere and steel balconies around the front. Surrounding it is the glittering blue-tiled pool along with edible gardens and gorgeous views of the hills, sandy beaches, a craggy coastline and the lights of San Francisco.

Says Kler: "What made this particularly challenging was that there was never an overall program to begin the project. Each phase was started without knowing there was going to be subsequent phases to design." For example, the swimming pool was started and then a cabana, in a rusty red, "a nod to the Golden Gate Bridge." During construction they decided to do a four-bedroom addition, later changed to two bedrooms and a family room. Then a new kitchen and master bath and entry. And so on - until finally there were a total of six phases of building, including landscaping and driveway.

Ribbon of glass

To maintain cohesion, Kler stretched the three-level copper and stucco building horizontally across the property. Light and views were paramount, so the existing roof was sliced from eave to eave with a linear ribbon of glass "allowing the colors of the day to be seen from inside." Each of the new bedrooms was stepped back to allow for views to the ocean and to the pool. There are angles everywhere; even the family room is a triangle leading to a triangular deck. Kler wanted to go beyond the modernist cliches of a flat roof and a wall of glass. "I wanted to create spaces that excited the senses with a variety of roof planes and intersections.

Expanding design

"I would not start a design with the idea that I am going to do angles for angles' sake," he explains. "The angles allowed the design to grow in phase because there were many more expansion possibilities than would occur within a geometric box. Additionally the angular composition provided multiple viewing opportunities of the pool, landscaping, hillside and the ocean .... Modernism has always said that less is more. I think less is less and more is richer, and that is what the composition of this residence was about. And the angles were part of that richness."

During the process the family camped out in every room in the house. Simes says: "I would not recommend it, but I probably would have still made the same decision. We had a family vote and we all opted to stay in the house. And I was always worried if we moved out and rented in Mill Valley my son would not have wanted to move back to the beach."

It's been a long road, but Simes says she's always known this is where her family should be: "As soon as you drive over the hill, there's the sea and the sand and this huge sky - it's like coming home to a vacation."